Orange Pear Apple Bear
Great book, take a look!
OR
Sparse text, read it next.
OR
Clever story, I adore thee.
I debated attempting to let my five word reviews stand on their own just as Emily Gravett uses just five words to create her entertaining picture book Orange Pear Apple Bear. In the end I decided that she’s a bit more successful at brevity than I am, so I am employing an uncounted number of more words to praise this story.
Only four nouns are used to comprise the sum total of words and illustrations of this book. Text and illustrations match up perfectly. If the text says orange, then the page displays an orange. If the text says orange, pear, apple, bear, then all four are pictured on the page. The charm of this simplicity is in the way that the objects are arranged on the page in order to tell a complete, completely quirky, and completely humorous story.
What begins with an orange, a pear, and an apple ends with a big satisfied bear lumbering away from two cores and a rind. On the journey from beginning to end, Gravett treats readers to some unusual (borderline fantastic) watercolor compilations. The ursine star displays his skills as he juggles the fruit and balances the fruit on his nose. The illustrations’ color schemes are equally playful, and they are set off to their best advantage against white backgrounds. For instance, when the text reads “Orange pear, apple bear” the pear becomes bright orange and the bear takes on a greenish tint. As mentioned, it all ends quite badly for the fruit and quite well for the bear as the bear consumes each piece and then trots off.
Orange Pear Apple Bear is so simple that even pre-readers will be able memorize the text and find themselves “reading” before they know it. Since the words and pictures align so well, it’s a perfect text to engage pre-readers and to teach them how the letters/words on the page fit together to create meaning. Orange Pear Apple Bear is an ideal book for showing kids that reading can be delightful and not a chore.
For more fun from Emily Gravett read Wolves, Meerkat Mail, or Monkey & Me, or you can visit her Official Site and sneak a peek at her forthcoming works The Odd Egg and Spells.
posted in humor, picture books, book review, children's literature | 0 Comments
